Mossberg’s statement is typical of what we should expect from a technology columnist. There’s nothing surprising here. Much of his statement is grounded in the SPJ Code of Ethics.

I was alerted to Andrew Alexander’s blog post by a Tweet from Jay Rosen who makes this claim (with which I agree): Transparency is the new objectivity. “Where I’m coming from” works better than the View from Nowhere.

But there’s something missing (and I do not mean to pick on Mossberg; he’s merely an example): The concept of transparency, I think, must include the concept of show-your-work journalism, which is a proper understanding of what objectivity was supposed to be.

Further, Mossberg’s statement, in its typicality, fails to account for biases that I have claimed are far more important to understanding journalists and journalism than the sorts of things we see in codes of ethics. Show-your-work journalism is all about making plain more than one’s adherence to a code or a defense / explanation of one’s politics. If we can see your work we can make better decisions about the quality of your news.

Again, posting personal ethics statements is a good idea. I posted one on Rhetorica the first year. But now I’m thinking it’s time to re-think and re-write. I’m not at all confident it fits the needs of transparency as I imagine them.